Power of Three
by thousanth
Summary: In Besaid they tell the future in the patterns of the seaweed on the beaches on the day their children are born. Lulu has her own methods.


In Besaid they tell the future in the patterns of the seaweed on the beaches on the day their children are born. A clear beach means a blessed life, and seaweed piled high means problems to come. The colour is important. Red for luck and black for stability. Orange for a life made hard by poverty. Green for happiness, blue for magic, and white for death.

Lulu doesn't know what the beaches said on the day she was born, for her parents are no longer alive to tell her. She always wondered though, looking out across the bay towards the wave-chopped horizon, what the beach would have said about her.

When she was eleven years old she cast a spell. It required a doll made from a lock of her hair, the clippings of her nails and a drop of her blood pressed into its cotton body. She gave it a dress made from an old skirt she'd long grown out of, and shoes she cut into shape from a ribbon she wore in her hair. In the evening she took the doll down to the beach and cast it into the sea, and then, once she was sure the waves had taken it far out into the bay, she went back home.

That night a storm blew up, and Lulu curled in her bed, listening to the adults worry if they should be taking shelter in the Temple, wondering where the storm had come from, fearing Sin, and with her there alone, quiet, knowing that the storm came at her behest.

In the morning she went down to the beach with the rest of the village to look for anything that the wind and sea had cast up onto the sand. She found her doll nestled amongst a tangle of seaweed, blue and white and all bound up like a fish caught in a net. She plucked it from its cage and tucked it into her sleeve, leaving for home before anyone could stop her.

That night, she slipped the doll under her pillow, and dreamed.

As is the way of dreams, she cannot see his face, but she knows this man. She loves him, of that she is certain. He sits next to her and everything around them is shadowed. This might be Besaid, but the moon is larger than she has ever seen it and the beach stretches further. It's night but the gulls are crying on the wind and everything is peaceful. She can smell the smoke on his jacket and see the pyreflies dancing across the bay.

The man at her side is a solid, reliable presence. Strong of arm and loyal of nature. A warrior with his sword resting against his back. The doll in her hands looks up at her and says, "He's dead, you know."

The dream changes. She stands in the sunlight, the world around her fresh and green. Endless plains of vibrant grass stretch for miles in every direction. There are people with her, a woman and a man and several she does not recognise. "Who is that?" she says to Wakka, who stands at her side. But Wakka does not answer. He has a weapon in his hand and he's looking south towards Bevelle.

"I need to get the others ready," he says. "They're coming for us."

"Who?" she asks.

"The Temple," he calls over his shoulder and then he's too far away for her to talk to, and she doesn't know if she can speak. He is too young to do anything, just a boy, what does he think he can achieve? And where is Chappu? The doll that was clutched in her hands is now standing beside her, as tall as she is yet still wearing the dress she sewed for it. It turns its fabric face to her, its bead-eyes strange on its pale face. She can see the stitching that binds them there.

"We're traitors," she says to it in horror.

"So they say," it replies. "Don't worry though. This is just a dream, like so many things."

It's Besaid again.

It's the Temple.

It's larger than she remembers on the inside, and she realises that she _is_ inside. Not just the outer chamber where the people pray to the High Summoners, but the rooms beyond where the Summoners themselves go to pray to the Aeon of the village.

The walls hold flaming brands that crackle with light and heat, making the place warm and comforting. She is not afraid. It feels right somehow that she should be here, as though this is her place.

She is here to become a summoner, and her Aeon stands before her. It is not what she expected, not what she knows the Besaid Aeon looks like. In the place of great, reaching wings and a curving beak there stands her doll. She knows that it is at once both her doll and the Besaid Aeon. It looks down on her with glittering black bead eyes, and its dress is a thousand shades of shadow that is somehow the same as the rainbow hues of the Aeon of Besaid, and yet not.

"You will bring the Calm," it says to her, and the voice is that of a woman.

"Am I a summoner?" she asks it.

"We are all summoners," it replies.

Somehow, as it is with dreams, that feels right.

It is a lifetime later that Lulu stands on the docks and looks out to the ocean. It is night and the stars are bright above, faded a little though by the brilliance of the city that shines behind her. So far from Besaid, still the stars that wheel on high are the same. The ferry that will take them back home bobs gently in the embrace of the water, bumping softly against the pier. She pulls her cloak a little tighter around her shoulders and listens to the waves playing around the pillars that support the wooden slats beneath her feet.

Decades have passed since she thought of that spell she cast, so many years and a lifetime ago. She still has the tiny bottle-pendant that contains the predictions she gleaned from her dreaming, those indicators of things to come that she both built her life by and gradually forgot as time and events took over. She keeps it tucked amongst the folds of her dress, on a silver chain with all the rest of her fetishes and trinkets. The tiny bottle contains a curl of yellowed parchment, its neck sealed with cork and wax. There is no need to open it to recall the words she wrote so very carefully on that thin strip of paper.

_~ You will love a dead man.  
~ You will fall from grace.  
~ You will bring the Calm._

As a little girl she'd thought the premonitions exciting and very grand. As a woman, she had preferred to forget them.

Her magic works in threes and she is not blind to the fact that so often in her life it has been third time lucky. Does three break the charm or bind it? She wonders sometimes if it even matters any more. She stretches out her hands to the ocean, tracing her fingertips across the distant horizon. So much lost, so much more gained.

In the distance behind her, from the direction of town, her youngest daughter is calling her name. "Lady Mayoress!" she calls her, rather than "mother". A little game she plays because she is still of an age to boast of her mother's success in place of her own. That will change soon enough though, Lulu knows.

Her seeing doll, with its little black eyes and scrap dress, has long since been lost back to the ocean. Along with so many other things in her life, taken by Sin or by storm or by fate. Whatever has been the cause, Lulu yet remains. Guardian of the last High Summoner, Mayoress of Besaid, witch, wife, mother, friend.

Her daughter reaches her side, and Lulu takes her hand, leading her away from the sea and its magic, and back into the city.


End file.
